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<\/p>\nReviewed by Reyes Munoz. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (2013), Metro 4 Theater.<\/p>\n
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Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film ‘Dial M for Murder’ is probably the most interesting and thrilling film I have seen at this year’s film festival. I have seen a great number of Hitchcock films but this one definitely take the gold, for numerous reasons. First off, I was very interested in watching this film after I was notified what it was going to be presented in the original dual strip 3D version in which it was originally shot in. While Hitchcock shot the film in 3D with the intention of projecting it in 3D, the film ultimately played in 2D in most theaters as studio executives felt that there was a major decline and loss of interest in the 3D process. I must say, this original dual strip 3D projection of the film seems a lot better than today’s digital 3D projection. The effect is so vivid that I found myself reaching out to the screen at times as objects seemed to be at arm’s reach, especially during the opening credits.<\/p>\n
As I mentioned before, I have seen many of Hitchcock’s other masterpieces and most notably his more famous and critically acclaimed works such as Psycho (1960) and North by Northwest (1959), just to name a few, but this work in particular is by far his most suspenseful and heart-pounding thriller that I have seen.<\/p>\n
Dial M for Murder, as the film festival’s pamphlet shortly describes it, is about “an ex-tennis pro who carries out a plot to murder his wife. When things go wrong, he improvises a brilliant plan B.” The ex-tennis professional goes by the name of Tony Wendice. Tony is happily married to Margot, whom we later discover has been having a secret affair with a mystery-crime-fiction writer named Mark. Tony eventually finds out about the affair without Margot and Mark ever knowing and devises a plan to murder her out of jealousy and resentment. As Tony sends off the two lovers, Margot and Mark, to an evening out, Tony stays behind and begins to devise his evil plan by meeting with an individual who would be hired as the hit-man to out his wife. Simply put, Tony explains to the man, Swann, that his wife is a creature of habit and every night before going to bed she has the exact same routine. Tony explains and demonstrates to Swann very specific instructions in order for both of them to get away with it and make it seems it if were just a robbery. One of those specific instructions includes Swann using a key to the apartment which Tony will leave under the rug of a staircase and then placing that key back under the rug. After entry, Swann hides behind a curtain, waits for Tony to call his wife, and after she answers the phone Swann is to emerge from the curtain and strangle Margot. Easy right? Wrong! This seems like the perfect murder except Tony forgot to factor one thing into his equation – Murphy’s Law. Things begin to go wrong when suddenly Margot breaks away from her usual habits and begins to throw off Tony’s perfect plan. Tony’s watch stops working, Swann never gets the queue from the phone ring, Tony calls late, Swann is about to leave the apartment, and finally when Margot answers the call she ends up wrestling Swann and accidentally kills him. After Tony manages to improvise by tampering with evidence, Margot is found guilty for killing the man everyone believes was blackmailing her. Everything goes as planned, for Tony’s plan B, except Tony forgot one thing: the key they found in Margot’s purse which he himself planted actually belonged to Swann, as Swann followed directions by putting Tony’s key back under the staircase’s rug.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, this suspenseful thriller had me guessing all the way to the end. This masterpiece also proves once again why Alfred Hitchcock is the master of suspense. By fat this is the most thrilling Hitchcock film I have seen and I highly recommend it to all of the die hard Hitchcock fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reviewed by Reyes Munoz. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (2013), Metro 4 Theater. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film ‘Dial M for Murder’ is probably the most interesting and thrilling film I have seen at this year’s film festival. I have seen a great number of Hitchcock films but this one definitely take the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2394,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,191],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2013"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2394"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}